The Senior Exhibition at York was fantastic. A culmination of a years worth of work wrapped up into a final presentation surely paid off. I had the responsibility of branding the show this year, and with 12 designers, it was a challenging task to incorporate everyone. I’ve chosen to display everyone in a 1″ wide section (for the postcards) and roughly 1 foot wide for the banner. Everyone’s eye line was matched and a random color (or one of their liking) was overlaid in a gentle opacity to give a playful feel and to reflect the color choices in the clothing. Below is the postcard front (the back is plain text – no eye candy there), and the concept posters in the gallery lobby. The posters were inspired by a Rick Valicenti work where he had overlaid employees in varying colors. I’ve taken the approach of full color overlays where the end result creates an eerie “extra” designer where everyone’s features are blended together, showing just how similar our features really were. One poster for guys, another for girls.

Excuse the iPhone 3G picture quality.

I’ll be making some additional UI tweaks to the site in the coming months. So far I’ve added title overlays on the portfolio page, so you know what you’re clicking on, rather than guessing based upon the picture. I’m thinking of switching from Arial Bold to an @font-face kit for some super stylish headlines and body text. It’s the little things really. Hope it makes browsing more productive!

Recently, I’ve joined AIGA through my college, and we needed to call attention to the rest of the Graphic Design department. Myself and a few other students have been lucky enough to “win” the poster drive out of many submissions. Below are two of my designs (however the ‘Love is in the air’ piece did not place the 2nd time around). They’re simple, bold, and deliver the point.

Download my first Fontstruction, created during my Typography I class at York College. A full character set, with 98 glyphs – you’ll be typing in no time. It’s very mechanical, and modular. It’s monospaced, so you won’t have to kern anything, it will always look great. The gray text block reads as follows:

Step into the future, unleash your inner extra-terrestrial and venture into the abyss. A monospaced miracle, you’ll be setting and forgetting in no time at all. Leave your warp drives at home – this font is so efficient, even factories cannot keep up with its production. A full character set on the US keyboard, supreme beings will take full advantage of its versatility. Using your optical receptors, you’ll find that this typeface is extra tall and skinny, just like the goon who designed it. Best set in abnormally large sizes – preferably ones that exceed your IQ. Based off of a cereal box game, these letterforms will satisfy your taste buds and pick your brain, just like the aliens will do upon abduction. Designed for you, with the future in mind. Design. Create. Share. Enjoy. Use at your own risk.

Pictured (L to R): Chris Wise, Kevin Granath, Ryan Beinstein, Jeremy Swiger, Ian Bates, Phil Effiger

As the Web/IT Director at WVYC at York College of Pennsylvania, we have received three nationally recognized awards from the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System last week at the IBS convention in New York City. We have taken home the awards for “Best Sports Program,” “Platinum Microphone Award,” and “Best Website,” designed and maintained by yours truly. This is a great honor for myself, the station, and the college as a whole for doing what we love to do. Soon to be added – “The Spartan” news report about the event, and other various newspapers with this content.

Check it out and tune into WVYC.org.

From The Spartan:

WVYC had an award ceremony Wednesday, March 10th at 5 p.m., where “The Platinum Microphone award for broadcast excellence”, “Best Sports Talk Programming” and “Best Website” were presented to the station. The Intercollegiate Broadcasting system is the sponsor of the platinum microphone award for broadcast excellence. There are thirty awards that IBS presents to colleges and universities.

IBS is the only national organization representative for college and university stations. This was a big step for the radio station at York College of Pa., we beat out all of the colleges in the country including Ivy league institutions, WVYC Faculty Advisor Tom Gibson said. WVYC along with hundreds of other college and university stations, submit entries to an independent panel of judges in Chicago. The panel was made up of individuals selected by the IBS board of directors. The entries were judged on established criteria by IBS. Some criteria included; was if the station had a designated program director, a promotion department, or sports programming department and how effective these individuals and the station were with these positions.

Although the exact number of schools that submitted entries was not recorded, it was in the hundreds. Each school could submit multiple entries. A lot of work went into achieving this award, “To win the Platinum Award for Broadcast Excellence, it took input from everyone involved with WVYC. This isn’t an award just for the executive board, but for everyone that has helped make WVYC the best college station in the country”, We are very grateful for this national recognition, and it is a testament to the hard work that everyone at WVYC puts in every day. It means that what we are doing is working, and we need to keep up the hard work,” FM Department Director Phil Effinger said. On top of winning the platinum award York College came home with Best Sports Talk Programming, and Best Website. The show that won Best Sports Talk Programming was, “ The Sports Take”. The show airs every Monday from 4-7p.m. and consists of Rob Mayer, Kevin Granath, Chris Wise, Pete Pirone, and Ryan Beinstein all York College students. “ I have been doing a sports show now for 4 years, and its very gratifying to know that someone recognizes us as one of the best,” said Sports Director and creator of “The sports take” Ryan Beinstein. The website was a reconstruction project that was conducted during the fall semester of 2008 and was launched in March 2009. “ The aim of the site design was to ensure ease of access for everyone, with the aid of large images in the header section with links to the latest article and gallery, as well as large listen live buttons to stream the FM and AM feed right on your computer,” Web/IT Director Ian Bates said. The site also includes: a live shoutbox, which allows listeners and viewers to request their favorite songs online while listening to their favorite program. Other features include, photo galleries, and promotional event flyers.“ It is a great honor to have received the award for “ Best Website” at the IBS convention. As one of the largest organizations on campus, we have a lot going on, and the website needed to reflect that. A lot of hard work has been dedicated to making the website the best it can be, and it surely paid off, Web/IT Director Ian Bates said.

WVYC has come a long way from when they were first signed on to the air November 18, 1976, which was a live broadcast from the Wolf Gym on campus. The first song played on this station was Don McLean’s American Pie, played by Dave Davies, according to the WVYC webpage. The mission statement of this organization is, “ The purpose and objective of non-profit, educational radio station WVYC, is to offer the York community cultural, informational and entertaining radio programming that is just not available from any other radio station in our area. We also serve as a training facility for all interested York College students to learn the art and science of radio broadcasting,” according to the WVYC web page. This organization has done just that, they brought an entertaining, educational and unique program to the York College Community.

It’s finally arrived. A full fledged working portfolio website for my services. It will be periodically updated showcasing my latest and greatest client work, and the occasional personal project or case study. I hope to take this off the ground and get some long term, committed clients who value my services, if you’re just here to browse, I thank you anyway for taking an interest in my work.

Regards,
-Ian